Wimm Labs Launches Wearable Wrist Computers

Wearable computers are an idea that have been around practically since sci-fi writers have been writing, but getting them into practical mass production hasn't been easy.

A stealthy company launching Tuesday, Wimm Labs, is looking to bring its own wearable technology to market. Wimm Labs' technology includes a customizable hardware device and a web-based app platform. The hardware is a small square device that can be worn as a watch, or around the neck, on a belt, or in other ways. It comes with WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, accelerometer, magnetometerand a "smartphone" caliber processor.

The device, which looks like a standard digital watch on first glance, has a touch screen and users can swipe on the screen to view various apps. The screen is monochrome when not using it but the color screen turns on when you touch it. The software is built on the Android platform.

Wimm Labs bike clip

The app platform is designed for a number verticals, says Dave Mooring, CEO of Wimm Labs. It comes with apps such as a weather app and calendar app, which syncs with Google or Outlook calendars to alert you of upcoming events. It also syncs with Android, Blackberry and iOS phones via Bluetooth to provide information that comes through a phone, such as Caller ID, SMS Preview which shows parts of text messages, and a lost phone warning app. The device is not designed to be a phone, so it does not have 3G service.

Wimm is licensing the technology to developers to white-label, but it is not releasing a direct-to-consumer model. Developers can license either a full device or just the technology and encase the components in a device in a design of their choosing.

Dave Mooring, CEO of Wimm Labs, filed patents for Wimm Labs in 2008. In 2009 the company raised funding from Foxconn, the manufacturing giant, and Mooring's fund, Pillar Ventures. Mooring was previously president of Rambus Labs and before that an executive at Intel for a decade.

Mooring expects Wimm technology to be adopted by sporting goods companies to track athletic activities, or health care companies, to track people's health. The prices can vary widely based on the type of casing the device is in--plastic versus ceramic, for example--but could retail for $199.

Wimm Labs will also have its own app store so that people who buy a Wimm Labs-powered device--a sports watch, for example--could also download other apps for the device.

But will Wimm Labs be attractive enough of a platform for developers to build on? Why would developers not just build an app for iOS or Android phones? Mooring says that with Wimm Labs' devices, people can quickly get information by quickly glancing at the device on their wrist, rather than having to pull out a phone. Also, because Wimm labs will be a "turn-key solution," companies that are not tech companies but want a dedicated device can easily license the technology and bring a product to market, Mooring says.

The development kit will be available to developers within a month and the app store will launch in the fourth quarter of this year.